


Déjà Vu

by lyndseas (darklyndsea)



Category: Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-20
Updated: 2007-06-20
Packaged: 2019-06-12 20:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15347775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklyndsea/pseuds/lyndseas
Summary: Time travel isn't always reversible.





	Déjà Vu

It's actually ridiculously easy to get papers, but that isn't anything he hadn't expected. This is, after all, Gotham in the '80s, before it was cleaned up, and the "underground" operations are still relatively aboveground. The police force is more corrupt than it had gotten by the time he'd come here. The atmosphere of the city reminds him so much of Blüdhaven that he finds himself attending the police academy before the ink is even dry on his new papers. He shrugs and goes along with it. It isn't as though he can _be_ a superhero without messing up the timeline, and at least this way he might do a bit of good.

It's easier the second time around. He doesn't have any reason to conceal his abilities at this point in time, after all, so he doesn't hold back.

It's strange, the first time he testifies at a case Harvey Dent is prosecuting. Strange to see his face unmarred, his hands _sans_ coin, his personality whole, and know that he's the man who's killed so many, has tried to kill _Dick_ , has caused so much misery for so many people, and to know that he hasn't done any of that, isn't that man, yet. He mentally coins the term "time travel vertigo" even though he knows he won't have reason to use it with anybody but himself unless he somehow gets retrieved. He isn't holding his breath on that one.

Gordon's _young_ , in a way he's never been to Dick, and _really_ hasn't been since he got shot. He's only a lieutenant, half unsure of his place in the world and in the department and in Gotham, and Dick wants to tell him he'll do all right, but he can't, he shouldn't even be in Gotham if he wants to make sure the timeline really is safe. But no matter how he resists what he really wants to do, he's sucked into the fringes of Gordon's fledgling group of people who don't, actually, have too much of a problem with the Batman.

Sometimes he's there when Batman comes, whether because of the Signal or to Gordon's office, and he can't help but stare, because he'd forgotten that Bruce had ever looked so _young_ , before years on the job had beaten him down. Only, he isn't certain Bruce had ever looked this young when he'd known him. Certainly not any time recently. Fortunately, he's _expected_ to stare. He is, after all, a young officer confronted with sudden evidence that at least _one_ urban legend (though it's barely even an urban legend, at this point in time) is true. He makes certain he isn't watching (he could, but it would attract Bruce's attention to him) while he disappears, leaving Gordon cursing. The soft sound of the cape on the windowsill or the rooftop is enough for him to track Bruce by. The memory of the smell of Kevlar and leather and everything that, added together, is _Bruce_ , makes him randomly break out smiling for a week afterward.

Nobody comes for him in the first year, or the second, or the third. Eventually he lets go of the small bit of hope he'd been clinging to (never a lot; he'd seen miracles happen many times in his lives, odds beaten, impossibilities come true; but he'd also seen the inevitable happen too many times not to know that, while the odds are sometimes beaten, most of the time they aren't) and stops waiting for rescue from the past and starts living his new life. It's hard letting things happen when he knows he can stop them (he takes a personal day on the day his parents die, and sits at home and cries and never goes on the roof with Gordon again), but for all the ugliness he could prevent there's a flip side. If his parents hadn't died he never would have become Robin, become Nightwing. If Jason hadn't died Tim would have just kept being the Batclan's personal stalker and wouldn't be the highly efficient Robin he is now. If Barbara hadn't gotten shot by the Joker…Every action has consequences, and he knows that even the worst things he can prevent have eventually saved lives, have eventually made the world a better place.

Nothing he tells himself makes it any _easier_.


End file.
